On average, every 40 seconds, someone in the United States has a stroke and every 4 minutes someone dies from a stroke.1 Stroke accounted for 1 of every 19 deaths in 2009 and, when considered separately from other cardiovascular diseases, ranks no. 4 among all causes of death.1 Accordingly, there is much interest in therapeutic intervention to decrease neurological damage and prevent death after stroke. Despite the prevalence of stroke, currently, the only FDA-approved drug for the treatment of stroke is the thrombolytic agent, recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (tPA).2 Although it provides neuroprotection, rtPA use is severely limited by the need to use the drug within 4.5 hours after stroke to be effective. Even if used within the therapeutic window, tPA has a risk of symptomatic intracerebral hemorrhage.2 New treatment options are critically needed to extend the therapeutic window for thrombolysis and to provide neuroprotection to slow cell death after stroke.
Currently, it takes an average of 15 years and $800 million dollars to bring a new drug to market.3 Each year, the FDA approves 20-30 new drugs for human use. At that rate, it will take approximately 300 years for the number of drugs currently in use to double. The repurposing of existing drugs for novel applications represents a more fruitful approach to drug discovery than the discovery of a new drug. The use of high-throughput screening for the repurposing of characterized agents with a history of human use is an important part of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences roadmap to enhance the path from drug to patient.4 
To date, a single high-throughput screen for novel stroke drugs has been reported.5 In that study, organotypic rat brain slices were used to evaluate the effects of small molecules on neuronal survival in an OGD stroke model. The study identified neriifolin, a cardiac glycoside, as a candidate stroke drug in the OGD model and confirmed in vivo functionality of the molecule in an animal model of stroke.